Falangist visions of a neo-imperial Madrid

Journal of War and Culture Studies Volume 2 Number 3 © 2009 Intellect Ltd

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jwcs.2.3.3351l

Falangist visions of a neo-imperial MadridOlivia Mufioz-Rojas London School of Economics

AbstractThis article discusses the creative opportunity that the destruction brought aboutby the Spanish Civil War, specifically in Madrid, became for Falangist writers,planners and architects in the immediate post-war period. Acknowledging thatthe material outcome of this opportunity was relatively insignificant, the articlefocuses on the rhetoric used, enquiring into the motivations that sustained it, andits potential implications for the future image of the capital.

For Falangism and, of course, fascism more generally, architecture (andcity-making) constituted a superior art form, one that not only reflectspolitics, but is politics (Llorente Hernandez 1995: 67). Although mostscholars - from historian Santos [ulia (1994) to architectural historianCarlos Sambricio (1976, 1977, 1987, 2003a, 2003b) - agree that theFalange's planning and architectural endeavours were, above all, pro-grammatic or rhetorical exercises that produced few tangible results, thevast amount of literature and planning material that was generatedduring the first years of the regime is itself a significant phenomenon. Allthese documents reveal an unprecedented commitment - if not a stubbornobsession - among ideologues and urbanists to identify the essence ofSpanish and Madrilenian aesthetics, and give some concrete translation tothe fusion of modernity and tradition that was one of the ideologicalpillars of Falangism. As Angel Llorente Hernandez implies, such a prolifer-ation of words and writings can be seen as a symptom of the Falange'sfailure to produce a genuine architectural programme in practice, andpossibly as a consequence of the prominent role of writers in this enter-prise (Llorente Hernandez 1995: 67, 73). But the fact that few of the ideascame to fruition and projects failed to materialize should not preclude acloser examination of the rhetoric used by Spanish intellectuals and plan-ners in the early 1940s. Precisely because of the symbolic role of architec-ture and city-making in the fascist doctrine, this rhetoric poignantlyreveals the regime's struggle to build a new political order on old socialfoundations and, in this case, a new Madrid, reminiscent of the golden-ageHapsburg Madrid. Moreover, it is argued, part of this rhetoric, which sur-vived in increasingly diluted form over the years, has had lasting effects forthe way contemporary Madrid is perceived.

Based on the analysis of excerpts from selected texts (few or none ofwhich have been translated into English before), the article starts by brieflyexamining the broader understanding of, and discourses on, post-warreconstruction in Spain in the aftermath of the Civil War, including the

JWCS 2 (3) pp. 335-352 {:> Intellect Ltd 2009

KeywordsSpanish Civil Warpost-war reconstructionMadridFalangist aestheticsurban planningPedro Bidagor

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1. A report published in1942 by RegionesDevastadas(Devastated AreasDepartment) indicatesthat more than 4600new housing unitswere projected duringthe first two years, ofwhich 776 werefinished by the timethe report waspublished andanother 1600 wereunder construction.The plans for 23 newtown halls had beenapproved, of whichfivewere flnished andflfteen were underconstruction. Theworks for building 77temples [sic) wereapproved, of which 48were finished and 97under construction(some of the worksmust have beeninitiated prior to1939) (Ministerio dela Gobernaci6n1942).

regime's prioritization of the rural and its idealization of the town-planningpractices of the Spanish Empire. Following this, it discusses the more con-crete manifestations of this idealization in the post-war plans and aestheticguidelines that the Falangists devised for Madrid. Finally, the articleenquires into the reasons for the abandonment of the Falange's originalplans and projects. The conclusion suggests that, despite this abandon-ment, the cultural impact of the rhetoric on the capital of the ew Spainwas stronger and more enduring than is usually acknowledged.

Post-war reconstruction in the aftermathof the Spanish Civil WarNational reconstruction in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War wasunderstood as physical rebuilding, moral regeneration and economicrenewal. To the new regime, physical rebuilding and moral regenerationwent hand in hand (cr. Casares 1940, cited in Urefia 1979: 283-85). Itwas deemed that one of the reasons for the spread of bolshevism in Spainand the outbreak of the CivilWar had been the increased class resentmentexperienced in the cities, where workers, often recent migrants from thecountryside, were concentrated in marginal, poor and unhealthy districts.It was thought that the construction of clean, ampler homes for workers insocially mixed neighbourhoods, adequately serviced by the municipalityand the Church, would prevent the danger of these workers' becoming classconscious and ensure the harmonious yet hierarchical coexistence ofSpaniards of different social backgrounds in the cities (cf. Arrese 1959:167-68). Simultaneously, it was expected that the construction of modern,rational agricultural units in the countryside would anchor potential newmigrants in non-urban environments, thus reinforcing the traditionallymore conservative values and aspirations of rural Spain.

In practice, the regime's priority was the restoration of town halls, casascuartel (the Civil Guard's barracks), religious buildings and houses insmaller towns and villages.1 Emulating Spain's colonial town-planningprinciples, reconstruction started by setting up the urban core: the townhall, the church and the local headquarters of the Movimiento (the regime'spolitical movement) around the plaza mayor (Llorente Hernandez 1995:82). The regime's preference for rural environments, religious buildingsand traditional architecture is apparent in Recol1struccion, the monthlymagazine that Regiones Devastadas (Devastated Areas Department) pub-lished between 1940 and 1953, as well as in the series of projects includedin the first illustrated summary of reconstruction achievements thatRegiones Devastadas published in 1946 (Moreno Torres 1946).

During the war, most of the larger cities had remained loyal to theRepublic, and not prioritizing their reconstruction was a means of symbol-ically forcing them to atone for their sins. Several of the regime's earlyideologues saw the 'liberal' metropolis as the nest of anti-clericalism, anti-militarism and other sinful activities, usually ascribed to the left. In thetypical Falangist rhetoric, simultaneously radical and poetic, the editors ofVtirtice claimed:

The city gobbles man up and, with his mashed remains, raises thoseimmense houses, builds those vast avenues, grows blind, squeezes out the

336 Olivia Muiioz-Rojas

air. It is the great sin to be fought; the babels will remain as the souvenirs ofa great crime.

(Anon 1939a, cited in Ureiia 1979: 269)

The 'great crime' was the 'modern betrayal' that the 'honest peasants' hadcommitted when they fled to the city, only to end up living in filthy quar-ters where they had been 'engendering degeneration and anomaly'. Butthese sceptics of the city predicted that the countryside would rise oncemore and 'destroy he who builds concrete over poppies and tall wheat'(Anon 1939a, cited in Urefia 1979: 269).2

A compromise between the values of the city and the countryside waspromoted by less visceral Falangist voices, who coined the expression'countryside urbanism and city ruralism' (Gascon y Marfn 1940) - anexcellent example of the Falangists' extensive use of antithetical conceptsin their ideological formulations (see Carbajosa and Carbajosa 2003:113). This group wanted to believe that peasants still possessed thehonesty, good faith and attachment to tradition that the inhabitants of thecity had allegedly lost. Simultaneously, they acknowledged that urbandwellers were more sensitive to progress and civilized practices. TheFalangist intellectual Victor D'Ors, for example, advocated that, ideally, thecountryside and the city ought to merge into a higher entity (cf. D'Ors1937, cited in Ureiia 1979: 249-50), which suggests once more the muchdesired synthesis between tradition and modernity.

At the same time, D'Ors and other Falangists saw the devastationwrought by the war as a unique opportunity to change the course ofurban development dramatically. In their Plan Nacional de Ordenaci6n yReconstrucci6nlNationaI Plan for Urban Planning and Reconstruction, theFalange proclaimed:

Cities, the most authentic monuments, everlasting and representative of theways of being and acting of different peoples - developed in chaos under theliberal principles - have now the opportunity to unfold naturally, scientifi-cally, orderly, under organic principles. These principles vibrate everywherein nature and with increasing perfection in man as the direct fruit of divinecreation.

(Servicios Tecnicos de FETy de las IONS 1939: 8)

When the Falangists looked back to the past, urbanism revealed itself as'one of the most eminent glories of Spanish science', 'the eight centuries ofreconquista and the American colonization [having been] accompanied byfirst-class town-planning activities' (Servicios Tecnicos de FETy de las IONS1939: 9). While the 'realist, integrating and hierarchical' Spanish geniuswith its capacity 'to impose total visions' was celebrated, 'the French andEnglish rationalist unilateralism or opportunism' was vehemently rejected.The authors pointed to the city of London as 'the greatest monstrosity everknown to world art', rhetorically asking if this was all that liberal theoriesand English hegemony were able to produce (Servicios Tecnicos de FETy delas IONS 1939: 9). Acknowledging Spain's present backwardness, theyurged the regime to turn the fact that everything remained to be done intoan opportunity to produce something different - something new and yet

Falangist visions of a neo-imperial Madrid

2. Poppies and tallwheat, red and yellow,might also be seen asmetaphors for theSpanish nation asrepresented by theSpanish monarchicflag. which Francoappropriated.

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inspired by Spain's golden past - that could ultimately surpass the architec-ture and urban planning of other (European) nations.

Some of these aspirations crystallized in the plan for Madrid, the'Imperial capital city'. designed by the special reconstruction board formedto address the reconstruction of the capital. Madrid. in spite of its fierceresistance against the rebels, was granted a special role in the new order. Itwas to stand above the country's other regions; it was to become thenation's head and would be treated accordingly. But for this to happen,Madrid had to pay a price - the city had to stop mirroring Paris and tobegin looking at itself in the deep Castilian mirrors of Toledo and ElEscorial (see Iulia 1994: 431).

Planning Madrid after the Civil WarOn 27 April 1939, barely a month after the seizure of the capital city, theJunta de Reconstruccion de Madrid (Madrid Reconstruction Board) - morespecifically its Comision Tecnlca de Reconstrucci6n (TechnicalReconstruction Commission) - was assigned the task of creating a new planfor Madrid. Pedro Bidagor became the guiding figure behind the new plan.During the war, Bidagor, who graduated as an architect in 1931, presidedover some of the meetings that were held in the premises of the anarchisttrade union CNT to discuss issues of urban planning and architecture, andhis reputation grew among his colleagues, including Luis Moya, Carlos deMiguel and Gaspar Blein (Azurmendi 1977: 16; Moneo 1968: 50). Asidefrom the perhaps ironic fact that the future regime's planners and archi-tects exchanged their idea in Republican Madrid in the headquarters ofSpanish anarchism, it seems reasonable to assume that these wartimeexchanges prepared Bidagor for his post-war commission. A first draft of thenew plan was ready by 1941; it was then shown privately to Franco. Thellnal draft was approved in 1944, but did not become law until 1946.

The Falangists had already shown particular interest in the redesign ofthe capital city before the war. They saw the Madrid of their time as full ofpoor imitations of foreign and other Spanish cities and cheap, tastelessrepresentations of the castizo character or Madrilenian local colour.Apparently. Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange. hadonce suggested that the best way of transforming Madrid would be to setfire to the city, placing firefighters close to the buildings that were worthpreserving (Conde de Montarco 1940). The war had somehow madePrimo de Rivera's wish come true, although many of the buildings hewould have deemed worth maintaining had also been damaged. TheFalangists were extremely preoccupied with authenticity. They believedthat by rethinking Madrid as an imperial capital city, they would restorethe city's authentic character, including its genuine, profound Castilianspirit. which had nothing to do with the vulgar casticismo, which theyidentified with the all-too-colourful, nineteenth-century facades anddubious customs of Madrid's popular neighbourhoods (Anon 1939b). Formost Falangists, authenticity - and not merely in aesthetic terms - wasultimately associated with seventeenth-century imperial Spain. While forsome of them this might have meant literally recovering the seventeenth-century built form. for others it was more about infusing the city with thespirit of command. austerity and deep religious faith which had allegedly

33X Olivla Muii.oz-Rojas

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characterized Spain's imperial rule under the Hapsburgs. The Falangists'primary assumption was that Spain's decline had essentially begun withthe arrival in the early eighteenth century of the Bourbons, who hadintroduced foreign, dissolute customs and extravagant tastes.

Bidagor was successful in capturing the Falangist sentiment. He was ableto convey the sense that his was indeed a new plan for a new imperial city.even though most of the planning concepts underlying the plan mirroredearlier plans. including Secundino Zuazo's 1929 extension plan for Madridand [ulian Besteiro's 1936 regional plan.' (cf. [ulia 1994: 436; cf. Sambricio2003a: 21). Among the continuities was a need to alternate urban popula-tion rings with green belts and accentuate the city's northern-southernaxis. While the former was borrowed from German urbanists' Groisstcd:planning proposals or the 1910s. the latter Bidagor took from Zuazo's plan,and it essentially meant promoting the expansion or the city northwards byextending the Paseo de la Castellana and completing the subterraneanrailway between Atocha and Chamartin ( ee Figure 1) (private e-mail corre-spondence with Carlos Sarnbricio. 15 September 2009).4

Bidagor's 1944 plan displayed the kind of radical, epic rhetoric thatwas so dear to the Falange. The architect aimed to rel1ect the Falangistprinciples of hierarchy, service and fraternity in 'the mode in which thevarious urban elements [were] arranged' (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta deReconstrucci6n 1944). In this context, hierarchy essentially meant thatthe city had to adapt to its geographical location, taking advantage ofexisting valleys and elevations and reserving the high areas for the mosthonourable buildings and activities (Anon 1939b). Service was partly afunction of hierarchy, meaning that each zone of the city fulfilled a specific


3. As the bead ofMadrid's Comite deReforma.Reconstruccion ySaneamiento. [ulianBesteiro had beenworking on a plan forpost-war Madridduring the conflict.Besteiro published thePlan in spring 1939.right before the endof the war (Besteiroet al. 1939).

4. According toSambricio. Bidagor -who had beenworking in Zuazosstudio before thewar - virtually 'stole'his former boss's ideas(er. Sambricio 2003a:63. 132).

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= I NO~H./

Figure 2: Plan Bulaqot; 1941-1946. A schematic drawing of the differentfunctional zones of Madrid based on orientation in Gran Madrid: boletininformative, no. 23, 1953, p. IS.

role according to its geographical location within the organic whole inwhich Madrid was conceived (see Figure 2). Fraternity, on the other hand,implied that although there existed separate zones for different activities('special', 'commercial', 'residential', 'green' and 'industrial', in Bidagor'sterms), the general aim was to ensure that different social classes livedtogether in districts and neighbourhoods or harries so that they would 'feelforced to adopt respectable behaviour' (Anon 1940). In other words.Bidagor, who, according to Sambricio, was possibly inf1uenced by theGerman Nazi economist and planner Gottfried Feder's ideas, envisioned anorganic city made up of smaller, hierarchically structured, self-containedunits where residents of different social backgrounds lived togethersharing all the amenities, from civic spaces (church, local party headquar-ters, school) to shops and leisure areas as if they were a big family(Sambricio 1987: 88, 94). As intimated earlier, the Falangists believed inthe harmonious and virtuous coexistence of different social classes andwere deeply troubled by the isolation of workers in working-class districts,where their material circumstances possibly improved but where theywere deprived of their dignity and the wealthier classes' paternalist affec-tion, both of which they enjoyed in the traditionally mixed buildings of theinner city (see Arrese 1959: 167-68).

Bidagor developed the above ideas in the twelve chapters of his plan, inwhich some other issues that had preoccupied his predecessors, such asaccess to the city, the redesigning of the old city. the completion of theextension projects, the redevelopment of existing suburbs, the creation of agreen belt and the construction of new satellite towns, were also addressed.

340 Olivia Munoz-Rojas

But Bidagor was particularly keen to emphasize the symbolic dimension ofhis plan: the attention to the spiritual implications of Madrid's capital citystatus. Accordingly, he devoted the opening chapter to La Capitalidad, thecapital's tatus. The language in this section is particularly powerful andgrandiloquent: it is a language designed to please the regime's leaders, pri-marily the Falangists, but also traditionalists and monarchists, who almostcertainly would have welcomed the reactionary implications of the idea ofresurrecting Imperial Madrid.

The first consequence of Madrid's capital tatus, according to Bidagor'splan, was that the city ought to become the bureaucratic centre fromwhich the rest of the nation was to be ruled. This was not new, but consis-tent with the well-established centralist tradition that absolutist and con-stitutional regimes alike had followed in the past. Secondly, Madrid was tobecome a living example of history and tradition. Bidagor proclaimed thatthese historical values ought to be associated with seventeenth-centuryMadrid, which, moreover, had produced a particular urban typology (withthe plaza mayor at the centre) that subsequently became 'characteristic ofthe most representative Spanish cities' (Cornision Tecnica de la Junta deReconstruccion 1944). Thirdly, not only was Madrid to look back into the(nation's) past. it was to re-enact such a past in the present and continueSpain's mission in the world. Such a mission was related to Spain's imper-ial enterprises in America and North Africa, but also to its potential role ascultural and historical mediator between Africa and Europe. Finally, byengaging in the Liberation Crusade (as the war against the Republicans wasknown). the new regime had embarked on a specific mission aimed atsafeguarding the nation's integrity from the threat of communist andatheist forces - in other words, the anti-Spain. This was possibly the ewSpain's most important mission.

Spain's various 'missions' were arguably captured in Bidagor's designfor three main routes of access to the city (which existed already in part):Via de la Victoria, Via de Europa and Via del Imperio. The three axes ful-Illled different aims. The first celebrated Franco's victory, the second con-nected Madrid to Europe. while the third 'picked up the routes to Portugal.Africa and Hispanic America'. Moreover, Franco had explicitly manifestedhis dislike of the poor, ugly suburban dwellings that extended along thecity's existing roads of access. These gave a miserable impression, whichdid not live up to the image of the capital city of the New Spain (1940).Thus, the new lines of access sought to circumvent the slums on theoutskirts and concentrate traffic to just three, monumentally conceivedentrance avenues.

Falangist visions or a neo-imperial Madrid 341

The grand facade of Madrid and the projectfor the Falange's Cas a del PartidoOne of the means by which Bidagors plan aimed to reflect the spiritual andsymbolic functions associated with Madrid's capital status was the city'sgrand facade. The grand facade was the particular result of the geographi-cal and topographical characteristics of the land on which the city wasoriginally built: an elevation overlooking the Manzanares Valley, theCastilian plateau and the Guadarrama mountains. The notion of a grandfacade emerged in the sixteenth century, when the I-Iapsburgs built the

J. The AlmudenaCathedral was notcompleted until theearly 19905.

Figure 3: Partial view oJ the grandJnr;ade Jrom the Montana del Principe Pio,including the Royal Palace and the AlmLldenn Cathedral (photographed by tileauthor: 2007).

Royal Palace on the remains of the Moorish fortification, which had stoodon one of the cliffs overlooking the Manzanares. and other significant build-ings were constructed along the western edge of the plateau (Figure 3). Theproximity to the palace. and also the privileged view of the wide and beau-tifullandscape extending at the foot of the edge, made the location attrac-tive for the construction of noble edifices, which gradually contributed toshaping Madrid's physiognomy. The contrast between the open. greenspace of the valley and the silhouette of the monumental buildings on theplatform that rose over the valley made the concept of a grand facademeaningful. The grand facade became a place from where one could lookout onto nature, but also a place to be looked at from nature. It was itself amixture of natural and artificial qualities. According to [ulia, the attentionpaid to the grand facade was one of the few novelties proper to theFalangists' plan for Madrid (julia 1994: 436).

In his opening chapter on Madrid's capital status, Bidagor refers to'three symbolic buildings of utmost national evocation' on the grandfacade, which together constitute an urban complex that 'corresponds tothe vital principles of the New Spain' (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta deReconstruccion 1944 - unpaginated). He argues that 'Religion, Fatherlandand Hierarchy are expressed in the Cathedral, the Palace and the newbuilding of FET-JO S [the Falange'S Party Headquarters] situated on thesacred plot of the Cuartel de la Montana' (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta deReconstrucci6n 1944 - unpaginated; emphasis in original). Bidagor alsosuggests that being surrounded by 'the old City', where the traditional andthe popular come together, this complex of buildings is even closer to per-fection (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta de Reconstrucci6n 1944).

Unlike the Royal Palace and the cathedral which already existed. albeitin an unfinished state in the case of the latter. ') the Casa del Partido, or the


Figure 4: Model of the Falange's Casa del Partido in Fotos. Semanarto Crafico(San Sebastian), 24 July 1.94 3.

headquarters of the Falangist Party (FET-JONS), was still merely a project.In 1943, Franco approved the preliminary plans for the monumental,neo-Herrerian, 70,OOO-square-metre five-storey building (Figure 4) thatwould host the Falange's party offices (Barberan 1943; Trenas 1943).Bidagor had planned the building on one of the most privileged locationsof the grand faea de. the Montana del Principe Pio. exactly where theremains of the military headquarters known as the Cuartel de la Montanastood. the setting of the first clash between rebels and Republican forces inthe capitalin July 1936. The first rebel fighters (or 'liberators' from theNacionales' point of view) had fallen there. infusing the soil with their.blood, which in the Falangist imagery possessed almost sacred qualities.

Aside from constructing the Falange's headquarters. Bidagor impliedthat a considerable portion of the district of Arguelles, largely in ruinsbecause of the war, could be demolished, thereby creating space on thegrand facade for some of the ministries, including the Ministerios deFuerza y Espiritualidad (Ministries of Strength and Spirituality). to quoteBldagor's own words (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta de Reconstrucci6n1944 - unpaginated), and perhaps also for the most representativeembassies and other international offices. By locating most of the politicalorganization in Arguelles, close to the Royal Palace and the AlmudenaCathedral, Bidagor sought to fulfil his organic concept of the city, wherethe grand facade was equivalent to the head of Madrid. The 'Ministries cor-responding to the material interests', on the other hand, could be locatedelsewhere. most likely in Nuevos Ministerios, which, in this view, repre-sented the heart and bowels of the city (Comisi6n Tecnica de la Junta deReconstrucci6n 1944 - unpaginated). Through the metaphor of the livingbeing in which organs and limbs occupy distinct positions, Bidagor wasgiving expression to the Falangist notion of hierarchy identified earlier.

Falangist visions of 8 nee-Imperial Madrid 343

Falangist aesthetics and post-war architecture in the capital cityParallel to. and often enmeshed in. the design of a general plan for thecapital of the New Spain. there ran the search for the city's genuine aes-thetics, which. as already suggested. was soon identified with HapsburgMadrid. The 1940 December issue of the magazine Reconstruccion. pub-lished by Regiones Devastadas. explored the motivations for such a choice.To the architect Luis Moya. for example, looking back to the sebenteenthcentury was the only way of transcending the stylistic chaos generated bythe incapacity of modern Spain to assimilate foreign and ancient stylisticcontributions. Spain. Moya contended. had possessed

the power of assimilation - the power to receive and elaborate - sometimeswith higher. sometimes with medium standards. but always sufficiently to beable to consider foreign and past contributions as the necessary nourish-ment to keep alive [our] style. always unique through the uninterruptedcourse of tradition.

(MOYCl. 1940: 11)

Moreover. Moya also referred to the colonization of America and the suc-cessful building enterprise that Spain had engaged in at the time throughthe prolific construction of towns in the newly conquered lands (Moya1940: 15). To Moya, a devoted Catholic. who understood architecture astrue reflection of the social order (CapiteI1977: 10). the secret of Spain'ssuccess in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lay in its capacity toappropriate diverse influences and produce something genuinely Spanishand imperial. In his view. it was mainly through the mediation of Juan deHerrera, the architect of The Escorial.

that Spanish golden-age architecture had been successful in incorporatingthe oriental method - more as a rebirth of the Hispanic-Arab tradition thanas an importation - the Italian method of the more severe times. and evencertain aspects or the Flemish. [producing] an architecture [with] abundantmeans for responding to any kind of programme that a great Empire mightneed. and [becoming] a true Imperial architecture. like that of ancient Rome.

(Moya 194(l: 15)

For many Falangists writers - including Ernesto Cimenez Caballero andRafael Sanchez Mazas - beyond its aesthetic qualities (or rather because ofthem). The Escorial embodied quasi-metaphysical properties. It was. inGirnenez Caballero's words. 'the genius of Spain [ ... ] the supreme State ofChristianity' (cl'. Mainer 2005: 236). Architecture had thus the potential ofrecreating the spirit and the values of the old Spanish Empire in contempo-rary Madrid. and one of the city council's projects (also referred to inBidagor's plan) was restoring the historical. Hapsburg district of the capitalcity. Mariano Garcia Cortes, author of Madrid y su jisionomia urbana (Madridand its urban physiognomy). suggested. however. that' "Historic Madrid"has to produce the feeling of what it might have been. of what ImperialMadrid should have been. the head of the State. "where the sun never set" ,(Garcia Cortes 1940: 32. 33). According to Garcia Cortes, this could some-times involve 'falsifying' what had actually been there in the name of

344 Olivia Munoz-Roias

'historical truth' (Garcia Cortes 1940: 32). Overt manipulation of the histor-ical built environment was hence acceptable to Garcia Cortes, whose Iunda-mental preoccupation was to transmit the sense of power of Imperial Spainand the genius of the Hispanic race (Urefia 1979: 109). And this did notinclude the inconveniences of the seventeenth century, such as using 'thestreets [as] dumping sites' or restoring poor and miserable houses, whichGarcia Cortes associated with the old Jewish and Moorish neighbourhoodsin southern Madrid and the hovels 'n la malicia (Garcia Cortes 1940: 34).6

The anti-Semitic elements of the regime's early neo-Hlspanic imperialdiscourses are perhaps unsurprising. In particular, the associationbetween Moorish and Jewish neighbourhoods with crammed and narrowstreets and brick architecture of poor quality seems to have become some-thing of a cliche in the early 1940s. In 1944, Gimenez Caballero wrote:

Stone, in Spanish architecture, is the essential and traditional element:Roman [... ] [and] brick: earth, mud, grime, dust, the soil itself. the peopleitself. the lowest people of Spain, in their secular fight against the stone,dominating and Arian. The fight between stone and brick ([between]Christian and infldels, Nationalists and Reds) lasted for several long,medieval centuries in tbe architectural front line of Spain without reachinga resolution.

(Cimenez Caballero 1944. cited in Urena 1979)

At the same time, not even the Falangists could ignore the magnificentarchitectural achievements of the period of Islamic domination or the factthat most of the street plan of old Madrid, including the noblest areas, stillfollowed the original Moorish street layout. Hence, it was not without con-tradictions and with limitations that the terms Moorish and Jewish could beused in this context as metaphors for poverty and ugliness, which, of course,Gimenez Caballero also identified with the working class and the 'Reds'.

In his essay 'Espaiia: germal10s contra bereberes' ('Spain: Germansagainst Berbers'), written while in prison in the summer of 1936, JoseAntonio Primo de Rivera partly resolves this contradiction by distinguish-ing between the Arabs and the Berbers and ultimately replacing culturaldifference with class difference. While he sees the Arabs, a higher civiliza-tion, as leading the invasion of Spain in the eighth century, he views theBerbers, a nomadic, lower people, in his view, as the population group thatin practice took over the Peninsula. According to Primo de Rivera, the(class) afftnities between the Berbers and the indigenous Iberian peoples -who had previously been dominated, yet not integrated, by the Romans -resulted in their 'crossbreeding'. Thus, in Primo de Rivera's elitist view, theChristian, Gothic kings who fought the Reconquista managed only toexpel the Arab leaders. The remaining lower castes, who were by then amixture of Berber and Iberian indigenous peoples, were vanquished andsubsequently subjugated by the Christian noble caste of Gothic descent(Primo de Rivera y Urquijo 1996: 160-62). When understood as part ofthis simplistic class dynamics, the apparently contradictory act of praisingthe achievements of the Arab civilization - including its urbanism andarchitecture - while showing disdain for the Berber or Moorish cultureappears conceptually less problematic.

Falangist visions or a neo-imperial Madrid

6. 'Casas a la malicia'(which could betranslated assomething like'houses with malice')were tbe kind ofconstructions thatemerged in Madrid inthe sixteenth andseventeenth centuriesas a result ofresiden ts' legalobligation to host theking's servants morepermanently. In orderto avoid suchobligation.Madrilenians begandeliberately toconstruct their housesso they would notfulfil the minimumstandards required tohost the royalemployees. They didthis by subdividingeach floor into morerooms or 'hiding'rooms in the upperstoreys, thus creatingrather uncomfortableand reduced livingspaces.

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The acknowledgement of the contribution of the Arab civilization tothe Spanish nation resonates in the apparently more sophisticated andgenerous interpretation of Madrid's diverse pasts and traditions that VictorD'Ors proposes, when he celebrates Madrid as 'a border city, within a ter-ritory, Spain, which is itself already a border' (D'Ors 1947: 51). By 1947,the redevelopment plans for historic Madrid - or 'Magerit' as D'Ors refersto it. using Madrid's original Arabic name - had made little progress, andD'Ors blamed the delay on the continuing lack of a set of general aestheticprinciples with which to reorder not only historic Madrid but the cityat large. In trying to overcome more rigid understandings of ImperialMadrid, which tended to privilege the north-western, allegedly nobler partof the city. he suggested that 'Madrid has two faces. the silver face thatlooks to the north and the north-west. and the golden face that looks tothe south and south-east' (D'Ors 1947: 51). According to D'Ors, the stony,yet solemn, bluish and greyish 'Velazquean [and Herrerian] landscape' tothe north-west had its counterpart in the yellow and red tones ('rheAragonese brick, Arab roof-tiles and Andalusian whitewash'), which hesees as typical of the south-eastern landscape, and were 'immortalised bythe brush of the early Coya' (D'Ors 1947: 51).

'Madrid looks, on the one hand, to Europe and the Western world; onthe other, to Africa and the Mediterranean,' D'Ors writes (D'Ors 1947: 51).In architectural terms, Madrid had inherited 'the grey German slates andthe Baltic pinnacles. the Flemish windows, the alternating arrangement ofopenings and protruding volumes of France, and even the far-awayScandinavian spires and today still. the New York skyscrapers' from north-ern Europe (and North America). From the Mediterranean. on the otherhand, Madrid had inherited 'the arcades of Florence and the cupolas ofRome and partly the strong chromatics of Byzantium' (D'Ors 1947: 51).

D'Ors ends his comprehensive homage to the overlapping culturalinfluences to be found in the capital city by claiming that

[Madrid's] task is the same as that of Spain as a whole. but because of its bordercondition and capital status. with all the more reason: to hold [back] both ten-dencies. temper them. and finally integrate them into a higher harmony.

(l),Ors 1947: 51)

D'Ors suggests that the integration of the two Madrids into a 'higherharmony' involves maintaining their distinct styles, colours and construc-tion materials and establishing the right proportion of each of the two tra-ditions in the reconstruction of the old city and the development of thenew city (D'Ors 1947: 51-52). The aim is once more to produce a synthe-sis of apparent opposites. However, the notions of 'tempering' and 'holdingback' suggest the existence of an elite. a dominant class, who are seen asnaturally responsible for maintaining the delicate social and aestheticequilibrium of Spain. From a Falangist perspective. this class was at thattime embodied in the victors of the Civil War.

The Falangist programme abandonedYet both Bidagor's Falangist-inspired planning concepts and the initialexaltation of Imperial Madrid - including the project for the Falange's

34(' Olivia Munoz-Roias

Casa del Partido - were abandoned by the regime after a few years. AsWorld War II continued and the defeat of the Axis powers seemed increas-ingly possible, hardcore, pro-German Falangists were displaced. In view ofthe war's change in direction, especially from 1943, Franco sought to dis-tance himself from the identification of his regime with the Axis by givingmore and more ideological room to the traditionalists and the Church.

Bidagor's plan, which was not effectively in force until 1946, thus afterthe end of World War II, was largely ignored in practice. This was partlybecause of its ideological connotations and the difficult economic situa-tion, but also because it had been conceived as a long-term plan thatdepended on the subsequent approval of hierarchically subordinatedpartial plans to become successful (Toledano 2003: 64). The curtailing ofthe initial ideological enthusiasm, which had motivated the plan, togetherwith the chronic lack of state funding, made it very difficult to implementBidagor's planning guidelines. Moreover, the pressure of the continuedmigration from the countryside (despite attempts to prevent it) made itimpossible in the long run to maintain the division of the city into indus-trial, residential and green zones as prescribed by Bidagor's plan (see [ulia1994: 440-44). Where Bidagor and his predecessors had envisionedgreen belts separating each population ring at the outskirts of the city,there quickly grew massive, unplanned and inadequately servicedsuburbs, creating a horizontally polarized city where the poverty-strickenperiphery was not physically separated from the city centre, but simply itscontinuation (cr. Resina 2001: 77).

Bidagor's plan had mirrored the Falangist architects' belief in top-downstate planning. It was the last of a series of attempts that began in the1920s to define a holistic city project for Madrid, or the last effort to con-ceive of the future Greater Madrid from a unitary and global perspective(Humanes Bustamante 1986: 29; [ulia 1994: 442). In practice, the designof the new city ended up. or perhaps continued, in the hands of redevelop-ers such as the brothers Otamendi.? who negotiated, if not imposed, theirown priorities in the drawing up of the partial plans and the design of spe-cific projects (cf. Moneo 1968: 52). When the government eventuallyreacted at the end of the 19 50s and tried alleviating the rampant housingshortage through subsidizing the construction of cheap housing. privateredevelopers were once more the main beneficiaries (cf. [ulia 1994: 444).

Parallel to the abandonment of Bidagor's plan, the obsession withfinding and disseminating the genuine aesthetics and architectural style ofthe capital city as the head of the New Spain also dissolved. From 1946,individual architects began to recover more freedom of manoeuvre. Twocompetitions held in 1949 signalled the commencement of a new periodin Madrilenian architecture and Spanish architecture as a whole: the com-petition for the Basilica Hispano-Americana de la Merced (the Hispanic-American Mercy Basilica), which Luis Laorga and Francisco [avier Saenzde Oiza won, and the competition for the Casa Sindical (the SyndicalHouse) on Paseo del Prado (Figure 5). which Franciso Cabrero won(Moneo 1968: 54). Discussions in architectural magazines becameincreasingly eclectic. and previously banned foreign inlluences and ideasfrom Western Europe and the United States were again introduced.fSpanish golden-age architects had been celebrated for their capacity to

Falangist visions of a nec-irnperial Madrid

7. The brothersOtamendi wereresponsible for theconstruction of thefirst underground linein Madrid.inaugurated in 1919(see Toledano 20(H).and later of theEdificio Espana andTorre de Madrid onPlaza de Espana.

8. See. for example.Anon (1946a).Algu nas fotograJiasque han Iigurado enla ExposicionIberoamericana' .Hl'vista Naciona! de/wquitectura (NurneroExtraordinario[special issue]).April-May. pp.96-104: Anon(1946b). 'Notas deuna visita aEstocolmo, Hpvisla

iaciol1al delirqllill'cltlra (NurneroExtraordlnano[special issue]).April-May, pp. 75-95;Azorin (1941). 'Lapsicologia y laarquitectura'. RrvistuNarionui ill'lirqlliiectllrll. 12. pp.1. 48: Chueca. F.(1953). 'Expenenciasarqultectontcas de unvia]e a lorteamerica,Hl'visll1 Nucional deIirqllill'ctllI'll. 135.March. pp. 39-50:Plata, D. (1957). 'EImomento espanol',Rcvisu, Narionn! delirqllitec/lIrl1. 184. pp.3-5: Ramirez deLucas, J. (1958).'Madrid - Milan:empate y prorroga,Hevislil iaciol1al de/vrqnitrrtum, 199. pp.27-28: and Vivanco.L. F. (1951).'Puncionalisrno yladrillismo'. Hevis/aNal'icJ/1aldeIlrqllill'ctlll'll.119.pp. 34-31l.

347

Figure 5: Francisco Cabrero's Casa Sindical (today's Ministry oJHealth andConsumption) on Paseo del Prado, constructed 1949-1955 (adaptedJromhttp://perso.wanadoo.es/nsiscabrero/CSindical. htm. accessed on 29 August 2009).

synthesize diverse influences. but it was the particular result of theirachievement in the seventeenth century that the Falange had tried torevive in the 1940s without success. What the Falangist architects failed(or refused) to see was that the revival of a mummlfled style would hardlyproduce the kind of magnificent architecture which they envisioned. Theyfailed to understand that the potential for success lay in the process itself -the openness to foreign inl1uences and the capacity to assimilate them.This is what many of them seemed to realize towards the end of the 1940s.

Concluding remarksIn spite of the chronologically limited nature of the Falangist experiment. theefforts to plan a new capital city and develop a national style - regardless ofthe material outcome, and possibly even the aesthetic quality - suggeststhere existed a moment of genuine enthusiasm and creative ambition amidstFalangist architects and planners in the immediate aftermath of the CivilWar. The possibility of constructing a new Spain was an enthralling prospectfor the victors (who, it should be noted, did not hesitate to use forced labourin reconstruction works). Although post-war Spain's lack of resources andFranco's ideological readjustment towards the end of World War If seem toexplain the abandonment of the grandiose plans for, and discourses on,Madrid. it is nonetheless remarkable that such a Significant investment ofhuman and intellectual capital - including debating. drafting. modelling,


approving and publicizing the numerous plans and projects - simply van-ished, dissolving into paperwork and dusty files.

As suggested above, a number of scholars identify the doctrinal and pro-grammatic nature of the Falange's building agenda as its fundamental weak-ness in practice. Indeed, the fact that as many writers as architects wereinvolved in the process of drawing up post-war Madrid cannot be ignored.However. bearing in mind post-war Spain's lack of economic resources andthe absence of any international financial aid, it is likely that Madrid wouldhave been left with an equally insignificant Falangist planning and architec-turallegacy had a more technical, ideologically neutral approach been taken.But then this would have taken place without the persuasive words - at timesprovocative, at times pathetic - that so effectively convey the concerns andrnotivations of the regime's early intellectuals and planners.

Some of the rhetoric on the status of Madrid as the head of the nation anda stronghold of Castile - the authentic Spain - survived over time, even if inthe form of cliches. Nevertheless, I would argue that this has had some effectupon the way Madrid is perceived today. Despite the post-modern image of thecapital that gradually emerged after the transition to democracy - largelythanks to the urban cultural movement known as the Madrilenian Movida, amovement which includes the films of Pedro Almodovar - the stigma ofhaving been the head and bureaucratic centre of the dictatorship seems toprevail. Recent initiatives to strengthen the image of Madrid as a region." orthe comparatively insipid official discourses promoting the city for the 2016Olympic Games (cf. httpi//www.madrid.Zu.l.fi.es), suggest, among otherthings, that it is difficult for the capital to develop a more assertive imagewithout evoking the ghost of Spanish reactionary nationalism and authori-tarian centralism. When looking back on the twentieth-century history ofMadrid, the once powerful image of the Republican, progressive metropolis,which, to the cry of j 0 pasarani, resisted Franco for almost three years ismore seldom called to mind. The Falange's visions of a neo-imperial Madridcontributed to the particular aesthetic-political imagination of the city thatevolved throughout the dictatorship, and in this sense, it is perhaps legitimateto ask if sometimes words can weigh more than stone.

AcknowledgementsThe author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewer of the article, the editors andProf. Carlos Sarnbricio for their useful comments on earlier drafts. Of course. allviews expressed and errors remain the sole responsibility of the author.

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Falangist visions or a nee-imperial Madrid 351

Contributor detailsDr. Olivia Munoz-Rojas teaches in the Department of Sociology at the LSE, whereshe recently completed her Ph.D. with a research project titled 'Wartime destruc-tion and urban post-war reconstruction of cities: case studies of Barcelona, Bilbaoand Madrid in the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath', supervised by Dr. FranTonkiss and Prof David Frisby. She has presented a number of conference paperson aspects of urban reconstruction and the Spanish Civil War. Among other publi-cations, she is co-author of Suburban Regeneration. The Real Challenges (BURA:London. 20(2). Contact: Department of Sociology. London School of Economics.I-Ioughton Street. London WC2A 2AE.E-mail: [email protected]


Falangist visions of a neo-imperial Madrid

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